And I Will Bring You Home
by muggleborn.dragon.ryder
Summary: R can't remember anything about his life as a living person. Anything. But suddenly, he starts to get memories coming back to him from his old life. Some make him smile, some make him laugh, some make him feel like crying and some just make him feel...empty. He starts putting the pieces together and find out what happened to him when he lived...and how he died.
1. Dream

**A/N: Well, since it is my thirtieth fic, I thought the big three-oh deserved a new fandom :-) And 'Warm Bodies' was one of my favorite books I'd ever read (if you like zombies, of course) and I had the idea of, what if R started remembering stuff about his past life? You know? Because at the end of the book, the author kind of left that up in the air. I haven't seen the film yet, but I want to! Anyway, haven't yet watched the film, so this is based off the book and anything that might be different from the book to the movie I can't help.**

* * *

I don't remember the exact day.

All I remember is, at one time, I was not stumbling around like the slowly decaying corpse I once was.

The decaying corpse that I still should have been.

Why wasn't I?

Interesting question.

It's all because of a girl.

Now, you skeptic readers, don't give me that look. A girl honestly caused it.

The most amazing girl in the world: Julie Grigio.

I would have still been dead if it wasn't for her.

But now my heart started again, all because of her.

And now that I'm slowly but surely becoming more human every day, and humans are learning to live with zombies, I'm starting to remember things.

Things have been pretty close to perfect in my life right now, but suddenly I'm finding when I was actually _alive, _my life seriously sucked.

I'm remembering so many small flashes, like pictures of a man who looks a lot like me, without the slowly decaying corpse part, and I just know he is my father.

I wonder what he's like, but I guess I'll only get an answer if I remember it.

And I'm not moving forward with the memories at all. At least, I'm not until I'm sleeping, which zombies have taken up doing now, and I wake up in a cold sweat, moisture dripping off my forehead, out my eyes…

This is the first time I've ever sweat or cried before.

It's strange.

I hastily wipe my eyes and struggle to remember every single detail of the dream that brought about such a reaction from me.

_The man who looks like me, the man who I know to be my father, is screaming at me._

_He's clearly very drunk, the bitter scent of alcohol stinging my nose._

_I've never been afraid of my father, with his slightly aggressive ways and quick temper, both of which he always denies he has._

_I swallow, staring into his eyes, which look deader than mine do._

_I take a deep breath and say, "Dad, you're drunk. You need to get out of here before you hurt someone else…"_

_Dad's screaming at me again, though I can't make out the words._

_"SHUT UP!" It sounds like. "YOU SHUT UP AND DON'T YOU EVER SPEAK TO ME AGAIN!"_

_I swallow and nod, gently tugging him towards the door. "But, Dad, c'mon, come get into the car…"_

_Dad gets quite mean when he is drunk, but right now he just looks defeated. He slumps limply against me and allows me to drag him all the way to his expensive silver car and buckle him in the passenger seat._

_I am almost sixteen, and I am not letting Dad drive in this state._

_I help him along, my fingers tight against the steering wheel, and when we finally reach home, I send him in the general direction of his bedroom, where he will go sleep it off._

_Tomorrow, he will awake with a pounding headache and nasty temper._

_But at least he will no longer be drunk anymore._

I stare blankly at the wall opposite the bed, and jump a little when I hear Julie begin to stir.

We live together now.

Her beautiful blonde hair spills down her shoulders and she's curled up next to me, but now she opens those gorgeous eyes of hers and blinks them a little.

"R?" She asks me, confused. "R, what are you doing up so early?"

I glance at the clock and see it's only 5:45 in the morning.

I swallow and mutter, "Dreams." Even if I hang around humans a lot more often, it's still hard for me to speak.

She says, "You want to talk about them?"

I shake my head. Then I think for a second and say, "I think…I just…remembered…my old life."


	2. The Memories Are Hard To Take

I couldn't fall asleep again, so I got up to walk around town.

Once there, I find I wish I'd just stayed away.

People are still giving us critical looks, as if to say, "You think you'll be the cure?"

_I _won't be the cure.

_We _will be the cure.

M stumbles over to me and mumbles, "R…up…early…"

I nod. "I know." I have a better grasp of the English language than any other zombie does out there yet. "Couldn't…sleep…" I struggle over the vowels for a second, then turn to him, raise an eyebrow and say, "What…about you?"

M shrugs. "Still…not used to…sleep."

I nod.

Silence reigns between us for the next hour or so, but we're happy as we are, walking with our slow, shuffling zombie gait and exchanging so few words but hearing so much.

When at last I check my watch and realize it's almost seven, I turn to him. "Get…back to…Julie."

I nod in the general direction of our house and M nods at me, telling me he understands.

I try walking like a normal person as much as I can now, and find that today is one of the odd days that I can run.

When getting home, I let myself inside the house and hear the coffeepot whirring away and the shower going.

They're both comforting, early-morning sounds and I sit patiently on the sofa, waiting for my girl to come out again.

Well, I hardly expected to be sitting there on the sofa one second, lost in another world the next.

Lost – or locked – in a world of memories.

* * *

_When Dad stumbles out of his bedroom the next morning, his hair all messed up, he plugs up the coffeemaker and turns to see me there, at the table, reading a book._

_It's a weekend, Saturday, to be exact, so of course I'm at home, reading._

"_R," he barks. He says more, but it's kind of blanked out, almost, like using White-Out across my real name and salvaging only one letter from the gooey ivory mess._

"_R," he barks at me, "what happened last night? How'd we get home? I remember being at the bar…"_

_Yes, of course that's all you remember, Dad, I think bitterly to myself. He has allowed me to drink before so I "won't try to rebel" in that category. He also sometimes drags me there because my sister is away at college and his "buddies" are too drunk to think straight, much less drive, so I drive him home a lot, even if I'm still a little under 16. I'm actually quite good on the road, despite my sister's constant teasing me about it._

_Yeah – my sister._

_She's lucky. She's already in college, away from the broken-down drunk known as our father._

_Of course, she never knew him as that, when she was my age._

_Mom only passed away a few years ago, and Dad only started drinking a month or two after her death._

_My sister is kind of the perfect daughter, and I'm the disappointment. So he never once hit my sister._

_If he ever did, I don't care what he'd do to me, I'd have to intervene._

_He can hit me and beat me as much as he wants…but he leaves my sister alone or crap gets real._

_I sighed and turned back to my book. "You got drunk and I drove you home. Remember?"_

_He frowned. "No."_

_I went back to my book._

_And so there we were, him standing, holding a coffee mug in one hand, wearing a confused expression on his face._

_And me, sitting, holding a book in my hands, soaking up the words as the only escape I get, even if it's just a temporary one._

Suddenly, I hear a loud, sharp cry. "R? Are you ok?"


	3. A Second Chance At Life

**A/N: Well, I have returned! What do you guys think? Good? Bad? So-so?**

* * *

I snap back in it to see Julie waving a hand in front of my face. "R? Earth to R!" She's saying. She snaps her fingers.

Her damp blonde hair clings to her shirt, wetting down the back of it and her eyes are wide, startled.

Not yet scared, but a little concerned.

I quickly reply with my oh-so-sophisticated grunt of, "Huh?"

She explains, "You were really spaced out. You weren't talking to me." She crosses her arms over her chest and raises an eyebrow. "Care to tell me what that was about?"

I swallow. This is crazy. But there's no one who I desire to tell more than Julie. Not even M, my best friend for years, is going to know about this before Julie is.

"I'm…remembering," I choke out. "Remembering…my old life."

She nods. "Last night, I thought you were just confused and had had a weird dream," she mumbles. "But was it really your old life?"

"Think so," I tell her. "But don't…"

"Know?"

"Yeah. That."

I shrug uncomfortably. "Don't…want to talk…about it anymore."

She nods and moves into the kitchen to get her customary morning cup of freshly brewed and I sit at the table, watching her sip but desiring none for myself.

The only thing I'm hungry for is her.

Er, that didn't come out right. I mean…. Oh, forget it!

Sometimes I think I'm just not cut out for this human stuff. But then, when I was dead, I used to think all the time I wasn't cut out for the zombie stuff.

Truth is, I don't fit in anywhere. I didn't fit in when I was alive…at least that's the vibe I'm getting from my living, breathing self in my memories.

I didn't fit in with the zombies, OR the Boneys, or…well, any dead being, really.

Now I feel like a failure at being human.

I swallow back the feeling and focus on being with her, Julie, instead.

She makes me feel like I fit in.

Julie sips her coffee and glances up at me, watching her with my haunting gray eyes.

She isn't scared of me anymore, though, so she merely says, "What's on your mind?"

Startled, I tell her the truth. "Thinking about how lucky I am to have you." I don't hesitate or falter in that simple sentence.

She smiles.

I smile back, wondering what I did to deserve such good fortune in my second chance at life.

I never thought I'd get a second chance at it, much less another chance at love, but here we are. In love, but taking things slow.

If I were a normal human being, our relationship would be a lot different than it is now.

But you know what? I like our relationship.

And I wouldn't change it for the world.


	4. Problem

Dad was so angry with me that one day. If only I'd known he'd been drinking…

_I approach Dad downstairs as he sits on the couch, absently flicking through the channels. I say quietly, "Dad, we need to talk…"_

_I don't think he's listening; his glassy eyes are still glued to the television screen, but I plunge recklessly on anyway._

_"Dad…I know this might be hard for you to hear, but you have a drinking problem. You can barely hold down a job, you're spending what little money we have left on booze, and you can't go a day without the stuff. I'm scared for—_

_"Shut. The hell. Up."_

_I know I'm in for it. I hastily bite my lip, wishing I could take it back. But Dad really does need help._

_Dad stands up. Mutes the television. Walks over to me. I can hear his footsteps on the rotted wood, in sync with my heart and the blood pounding in my ears._

_He smacks me across the face, and it stings, but he has done so much worse I can almost laugh it off. "You shut up."_

_I nod. I blink. I try to hold back the tears that sprang into my eyes from the hit._

_He grabs me by the shoulders. Physically shakes me._

_I find myself missing the old him._

_And suddenly he is yelling. His lips are moving, but I am deaf to his angry roars._

_WHAM! The impact with which he has thrown me against the wall bruises my spine and brings me back to reality._

_It's like someone has removed the earplugs from my ears, removed the veil over my eyes, and I can see and hear him with awful clarity. He snarls, showering me with spit. "Don't you dare try to tell me anything like that again, or I will make you regret it, you circus reject!"_

_Yeah. The story behind that nickname is not a particularly pleasant one, and he doesn't mean 'circus reject' as an endearing abbreviation for me._

_He once told me that not even the circus wanted me, so they got stuck with me._

_Yeah. It sucks. But it's my life, the one solid, dependable, reliable thing I have. The one thing I can count on at the end of the day is Dad yelling at me and calling me a circus reject._

_When everything else is crazy and uncertain…at least I have SOME form of certainty._

* * *

**A/N: This fanfic is actually kinda making me feel sorry for R...lol. Well, I'm almost done here...! *cough* I mean, this fanfic is almost finished. Not quite, but almost. Enjoy!**


	5. Plotting

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews, guyz :D Wow, this story has 32 followers! Well, please keep following because the way forward with this story is clear. I've been flying by the seat of my pants up til now LOL.**

* * *

"R? Are you ok?" Julie's watching me with that same concerned look in her eyes.

I snap quickly back into reality. "Remembering," I tell her.

She lays her head against my chest. "Feel like talking about it?"

That's one of the things I like about Julie: she makes sure I'm ok with discussing it before bombarding me with questions.

I tell her somberly, "My father was a drunk."

I can't tell if her gasp is one of pain or sympathy.

"My mother was dead," I add.

She says quietly, "I'm so sorry."

I want to shrug and tell her it's ok, but for some reason, the words die in my throat and my shoulders refuse to budge.

So there we sit in silence, her head on my chest as I try to ignore the pain of remembering.

The house creaks and shifts in the wind and the radiator hums.

* * *

_I'm sitting in my bedroom, rolling my pen back and forth between my fingers._

_Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth._

_And as I sit there, I begin to plan revenge._

_I think of all the bad things my father has done to me. And there in the darkness of my bedroom, with its bloodred walls and disturbing drawings tacked up on said walls, I begin plotting my revenge._

_My special torture for this man who calls himself my father. When half the time, I am surprised he even remembers he has a son, he is so drunk._

_I plan the torture. And I will end by killing him._


	6. Striking Back

**A/N: I saw I hit over 2,000 views and I'd been waiting to get more views before posting the next chapter. **

* * *

There's silence that night as I slip away into the darkness.

I'm not going to sleep.

I'm going to find out what happened to myself.

I have a deep-rooted feeling that the day I plotted my revenge…that I died that very night.

How could it be so? I was assuming I had succeeded in my revenge, but maybe…just maybe…I didn't.

Did I?

Only time and memories would tell.

* * *

_I waited for Dad to come stumbling in the front door._

_I waited with a blade in one hand and pure hatred in my heart._

_I waited and the moment he came in the door, I was over to him like a strike of lightning in the darkened living room._

"_Call out and I kill you now," I hissed the hilt of the knife slightly sweaty in my hands. My palms may be clammy, but I am remarkably calm and I hold the blade steady._

_I know the consequences if I am caught. But I don't care about them. This vile man who murdered my mother…he doesn't deserve anything from me._

_He had been so drunk. So drunk._

_He stumbled home from the bar._

_She tried to tell him his alcohol use was getting out of control…_

_She pleaded with him not to hurt her, or us, but he never listened…_

_And then he had the nerve to mourn her death, or act like it…attending her funeral…_

_No one knew it was him._

_But I knew._

_And I planned my revenge the day I saw her blood flowing from her chest and saw the scarlet liquid on his hands and wrists._

_That day I planned my revenge, and now I am prepared to strike._

_Now I am striking. I am striking back against the abuse, the murder, the cruel, harsh words, the stinging smell of whiskey on his breath at one o' clock in the morning, the constant threats, the murder, the murder…THE MURDER._

_I refuse to live with this man who has murdered my mother._

_I will spend this night under his roof, only to avenge her death._

_And then, later tonight, once he is dead, definitely dead, once his blood pours down the porch steps and chokes the grass and waters the lawn with the liquid of war…_

_Then I will clean the blood off my hands, rid myself and this house of evidence, and cover my tracks so sufficiently and neatly everyone will think it was a tragic accident._

_Even my sister._

_I will not trouble myself any longer. I will not put up with him. _

_I hold the knife at his throat. "One more word," I hiss, "and you're dead."_

_He shuts his mouth._

_I use my powerful fist to knock him out and once he is completely dead to the world, I carve the word 'murderer' in his arm with my knife._

_When that is done, I wait patiently for him to come around._

_When he does, he raises his arm, stares at the blood that glistens softly in the moonlight coming in from the window and he whispers, "What did you do to me?"_

"_Something worse than you expected," I reply. "But something better than what I should. I fear I had too much mercy. The extent of your crime, of what you are, cannot just be summed up in one simple word. You deserve so much crueler a fate."_

_Then I murmur to him, "I'm going to have too much mercy, I think. I'm going to end it too quickly for you to truly register pain…"_

_I move closer to him with the knife and, just when I'm about to strike, he gets up. "Now look here, R," he says, placating, and again I sense he says more, but my hearing is impaired for a minute or two as he says my full first name, then his sentence picks right back up again. "Now look here. You don't want to do this. You don't want to kill me."_

"_Like you killed Mom?" I hiss. "You're going to regret this. You are going to be shown to the world like the pathetic creature you are and only then will I have mercy enough to end it."_

_For one wild moment, I think he is going to hit me, but then he jumps on me, grabs the knife from my hands and finally, I find the hilt is no longer safely in my grip._

_Instead, it is being held by the man who calls himself my father, and the blade is pointing at me._

* * *

**A/N: CLIFFHANGER **


	7. My Small Revenge

**A/N: This fanfiction is finished. This is the second-to-last chapter in the story. Thanks for all the support :-)**

* * *

"R?" M grunts.

I see he and Julie are standing next to me in my backyard.

Don't ask me why HE is here, but I know Julie must have noticed me slip away.

My knees are pulled up to my chin, my entire body trembling as the truth of it sinks in, as the bloody memories come back to me.

* * *

_Dad and I, fighting to the death in our house, both wrestling to keep hold of the only weapon in the fight until finally he stabs it into my heart and I bleed, I bleed, I bleed…_

_The blood is so RED it frightens me._

_I am going to die._

_But I'm going to see Mom again, I remind myself. So death really won't be so bad._

_It is more the way I died than anything. I do not wish to die at the hands of this vile man, but if I must, I will fight him until I breathe my last._

_So I crane my neck to look up at him and I whisper, the words frightening me in their intensity, "There is one truth I know, you sick asshole."_

_He starts and stares down at me, a bleeding, gory mess but still breathing and alive, but not for much longer. "I'm going upstairs," I tell him. "And you're going down."_

_And then, because I could not go out another way, I begin laughing. I laugh as hard and loud and long as I can, first a little chuckle, then a fully-fledged thing because I feel the truth in my words._

_Even when he kicks my ribs and I feel lightheaded and dizzy and out of breath, I keep laughing because it is my own small revenge against him for what he has done._

_And I die laughing._

_Everything goes black as my own insane laughter rings in my ears._

* * *

Julie kneels down next to me. "R? Are you ok?"

I lift my head in a weak attempt to show her I'm ok. "I'm fine."


	8. And I Will Bring You Home

"R? Are you ok?"

"I'm fine."

Julie takes me up in her arms and mouths one word at M: "Go."

M, getting this, nods and exits the yard.

"Why was he here?" I want to know.

"You were…acting kind of strange," Julie said uneasily. "I asked him to come here to check on you. I wasn't sure if this was normal zombie-turning-human behavior."

Her weak attempt at a joke does not make me laugh.

Instead, my eyes rove over our house, taking it all in and I tell her, "I died laughing."

"You…what?"

"I died laughing. My father murdered me, and I laughed at him."

"What?" Julie gasped.

I pull her by the hand over to the couch and begin telling her the full story.

Right up from when I confronted my father about his drinking problem to when he murdered Mom and I began plotting revenge.

When I'm finally done, her hands are over her mouth and her blue eyes shine with something close to tears.

She embraces me without a second thought and whispers, "Don't ever let those memories take you away again. If they ever do, talk to me. And I will bring you home."

**THE END**


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